Nikko Weidemann watches King Khan: »Rat-Tribution Now« | Pop-Kultur 2020 Review

So I am here to look at a work, a Commissioned Work, of Pop-Kultur 2020.
King Khan was commissioned to submit a work.
I am now pretending to look at it for the first time.
*Music*
So basically we see animated drawings.
They are etchings, which are coloured, if I am not mistaken.
From his daughter Saba Lou Khan.
I would say it’s expressive naturalism.
What she draws is not abstract.
In any case, the pictures are moved from the outside, by light or by fades.
It’s a slow process, but it has such a tempo that we notice it.
There is basically a permanent movement, although the pictures are static.
But through light and colouring, something changes all the time.
There is this contrast with the narrator.
That definitely creates a tension.
It is exhausting to listen to the narrator and it is relaxing to look at the pictures. And I could imagine,
that if you did not have the narrator, you would still understand the story.
So of course you have to be aware that they want you to listen to it and at the same time
it is so exhausting to hear that voice.
So I ask myself, »Why is this like that?«
It’s

very loud, it has a reverb on it, and this voice doesn’t want to tell a story, but it wants to make an impact by scaring and by..
almost through annoying.
That flashed me immediately.
Because what is being told and how the images appear, has a certain poetry
and if I could choose, I would prefer to have the story told by someone more neutral.
But the position of the speaker is immediately.. Arrgh.
Grabs you immediately and takes you by the throat and shakes you all the time.
Which is kind of…
punk rock. For sure..
The pictures are wonderful. They are really expressive.
So the facial expressions are fantastic painted.
What also moves me on a very deep level or what I can’t get rid of is »Can you really eat rats and stay healthy?«
Because rats are scavengers, right? Rats eat everything.
King Khan is Arish Khan and his father told him this fairytale.
About the village, where the lowest caste is dependent on rats for food.
Well, we also have cruel fairy tales. In our case, Hansel sticks his finger out and the wicked witch has him in the cooking pot.
Yes, it is somehow, the purpose of children’s fairy tales is the taboo, is the warning.
So what King Khan and I certainly have in common is that we are children of migration.
In any case, I have also noticed that what I always saw myself in, which was music and song writing and singing, was no longer enough at some point.
I’m not starting to paint pictures now, but I’m sitting here now, for example, I have my theatre evening.
I have a certain kind of extension..
And that is all based on a storytelling urge.
So maybe a parallel between Arish and me is this permanent negotiation of »Where do I come from?«
I would, if I freshly came in there now and I saw the name King Khan, I would immediately tap on it.
Simply because I like the music and dazzling flamboyant personality of this man and I am somehow fascinated by it.
*Music*

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